Boxer Daniel Teasdale was hailed as the heir to the legendary Prince Naseem Hamed, but his promise never materialised into fame, fortune and films.
“He’s better than Naz at the same age,” said trainer Brendan Ingle.
Hamed had won his first world title aged 21. Teasdale was still a teenager.
Ingle, from his gym in Sheffield, moulded the careers of a conveyor belt of world-beaters and title winners. He guided both of the fighters from childhood.
Before super-middleweight Teasdale’s first professional bout, the Rotherham fighter had been featured in national newspapers, books and was being documented by photographers and film-makers.
He won a succession of national titles, establishing himself as the next contender to emerge from the Ingle gym.
Photographer Simon Roberts travelled to the Ingle gym in 1997 hoping to photograph Hamed.
“Brendan said ‘don’t worry about Naz, start photographing that kid in the corner. He’s going to be bigger than Naz’. That was Daniel,” Roberts said.
Roberts began to follow the young sensation, hoping to capture his rise on camera.
